Echoes
by CraazyOne
Summary: This certainly wasn't the first mistake he'd ever made. Just the biggest. -Extending this into a full-length fic-
1. Prologue

**First thing's first... I DO NOT OWN JIMMY NEUTRON OR ANY RELATED CHARACTERS. I just pretend to. XP **

* * *

**Echoes **

**By: CraazyOne**

* * *

Jimmy Neutron had made a lot of mistakes in his life. Tinkering with science always had its risks, after all. But now he was staring at the biggest mistake of his life.

The oppressive black atmosphere pressed down on him as if it had real physical weight, stifling him in ruthless darkness that wouldn't be relieved by the cold starlight. It was so dark that it was hard to even see the grotesque alien faces in the night, though their cruel laughter rang out clear in the quiet, echoing in his very soul. But more than anything, another voice kept repeating itself in his head, running through his mind relentlessly, as if hearing the words once hadn't been painful enough.

_What did you do?! This is all your fault!_

Cindy Vortex yelled at him a lot, but when she'd screamed those words at him, the desperation in her voice sent a shockwave of horror through him. This time it was _real_. The countless times he'd endangered lives or sent his city on a course of destruction had all turned out in the end. He was a genius, and his brainpower had never failed him before. He always invented a way out of any mess he created.

Not this time.

_All your fault._

He could see Carl enveloped in the shadows with his head bowed, and his grief-stricken eyes taking in the tragedy before him. For once in his life, Sheen was dead serious as he stood beside Carl, frozen to the spot, mute with shock…too horrified to even believe his eyes.

That was why Jimmy still half-believed this was a dream. It was unreal. This hideous planet, drenched in darkness and riddled with mangled-looking plant life and steamy, disgusting marshes, had to be something that had sprung from his nightmares. And surely those alien creatures with the malicious eyes and dark, globular bodies were something he'd created in his own mind after all the encounters he'd had with otherworldly life.

But something in Cindy's eyes shattered the illusion every time he dared to look at her. He'd never seen her like this: it was as if the life had been sucked out of her, with her eyes wild and miserable, her face white. It made everything far too real to him, especially that pain beyond anything he'd ever felt before. It was like having his heart ripped out of him. The emotion registered first while his benumbed mind still struggled to comprehend what had happened. Even the limp form that Cindy knelt over as she held it up gently didn't seem to help him grasp the truth.

Libby was dead. Killed by his own stupidity. Cindy hated him, and once Sheen's denial wore off, he'd hate him too. The whole city of Retroville would… But what did that matter? Jimmy already hated himself.

He hadn't expected that his adventure would twist itself into something so terrible, but then, when had he ever expected that? When had he ever actually weighed the pros and cons before heading off into the far reaches of space? Why hadn't he considered the fact that not only his life could be in danger, but also the lives of his friends? Overconfident in his own abilities and intellect, he'd been certain that he'd be able to negotiate peace with these alien beings who'd been bent on destroying Earth. Why had Jimmy always relied on his own brain…why hadn't he listened to all of Cindy's and Libby's advice and words of caution? Now Libby was gone, never to speak again.

Jimmy hadn't spoken a word since his little act of diplomacy had gone awry and they'd lost Libby. Cindy had screamed at him, the aliens had laughed, Sheen and Carl had cried out in horror and disbelief; but Jimmy couldn't say anything. Images just kept replaying themselves in his mind, and the haunting sight of Cindy staring down at her friend tearlessly as she cradled her in her arms wouldn't go away. Neither would the memory of the way she looked up at him with that lost expression in her eyes. And Cindy's words replayed like a broken record in his brain: devastating echoes that kept tormenting him with the awful truth.

_Your fault! _

It _was _his fault. He'd been the idiot to count on his own powers and ignore what his friends had told him. He'd been the one to overestimate himself while underestimating them, and look what had happened because of it. Because of him.

Suddenly, Cindy's voice jerked him from his daze. "You have to go back!" she shouted at him, clinging to her lifeless friend and ignoring the triumphant aliens surrounding them. It didn't really seem to matter if they killed them now, too. Nothing really seemed to matter anymore. "You have to stop this from happening!"

Jimmy spoke for the first time, the words somehow spilling out of his tight throat. "I can't!"

"You're a GENIUS!" Cindy practically shrieked. "Figure out how to get away from these creeps, go home and use your inventions to go back in time, and stop this from happening!" She couldn't keep the tears from slipping down her cheeks now.

Jimmy Neutron had made a lot of mistakes in his life. But he wasn't about to make the one mistake that had always plagued him again. Never.

He lifted his gaze to the girl across from him, calming her a little with the steady confidence in his voice. "Cindy," he said, watching the aliens creeping closer out of the corner of his eye, "I'm sorry. You're right. I'm going to save Libby, but I need your help." He glanced at Sheen and Carl. "_All_ of you guys' help."

Slowly, a smile formed on Cindy Vortex's face, even through the tears. She held her best friend tightly in her arms as hope poured back into her, and as he watched her, the weight seemed to lift off of Jimmy just a little. He turned to his friends, and their reactions were encouraging too. New courage seemed to rise in Sheen at the thought of battling for his girlfriend, and Jimmy could see that even Carl's loyalty was stronger than his fears.

Jimmy knew that he could count on his friends to give him the support he needed and the help his brainpower alone never offered. It would be easy to escape these aliens and rescue Libby if they each gave their all. They'd accomplished harder tasks than this before, when they'd combined their talents. Nothing was going to stop them from bringing their friend back.

And so, once more, four of the kids that had faced every kind of danger, that had conquered all sorts of villainy, that wouldn't let even death stop them, faced the aliens and prepared for another victory. Together.

* * *

**Thanks so much for reading! ) Please tell me what you think. I haven't completely thrown out the idea of turning this into a full-length fic someday, but I think I prefer it as a oneshot.**


	2. One

**Yes, I am extending this into a full-length fic, at the request of my readers (mostly those on the site Idreamofjimmy). I'm using my former oneshot as the prologue to this...and here's the first chapter...**

* * *

**One**

_Funny. It had all started on such a normal, carefree morning._

"Look, Jimbo! Duck-shaped!" Hugh Neutron eagerly shoved the cereal box in his tired son's face. "There are five different duck shapes, each after a different kind of duck! And there's a special prize inside the box!" He could barely contain himself as he shoved his hands into the box and fingered through its contents.

With a sleepy groan, Jimmy slid behind the breakfast table and watched his father rifle through the cereal.

"Wait," Hugh said, frowning thoughtfully, "I can't find a—"

He jerked his arm out suddenly, losing his grip on something in his hand and making dozens of duck-shaped cereal pieces scatter across the floor. "I think I felt something!" Hugh cried triumphantly. Tipping the box upside down, he shook it eagerly until a pair of flippers resembling webbed feet slipped out and plopped onto the tabletop. Hugh's eyes practically bulged out of his head. "Hey!" he cried, snatching at the flippers and holding them up excitedly. "Just what I've always wanted: _webbed feet_!"

Standing across the kitchen, Judy looked up from the grocery list she was making to glance at her husband with a shake of her head. She turned to her son with a warm smile. "Good morning, Jimmy. Are you going to try your father's new cereal for breakfast?"

With a glance over at his father, who was already sauntering up to Judy in his webbed feet, Jimmy frowned. "Um, no, I think I'll have something different." He jumped off the bench and headed over to the cabinet containing the Neutrons' assorted boxes of cereal. As he opened his box of Math Puffs, he couldn't manage to tune out his father's voice.

"Quuaaack! Let's fly off to our own little nest, Honey Biscuit!"

Jimmy rolled his eyes, but his mother giggled. "Now, now, Hugh," she grinned, "you should eat your breakfast!"

"You're right!" Hugh cried. With a flap of his imaginary wings, he returned to the table to gather up the cereal, dump it into a bowl, and pour some milk over it. He leaned over and held his ear just above the cereal. "Listen to them! Quack! Quackle! SQUAAAWK!"

"Dad, ducks don't squawk," Jimmy pointed out, brushing his drooping hair back out of his eyes.

"Well, this one does!" Mr. Neutron chuckled as he shoveled the crackling duck-shaped cereal onto his spoon. "Ah, the only thing that could make this morning better would be a fresh-baked…PIE?!"

Judy Neutron turned from pulling a golden-brown apple pie from the oven to smile somewhat suspiciously at her husband. "Yes, but we're saving this for tonight!"

Jimmy couldn't help but grin at his parents as he covered a yawn. It was just like any other Saturday morning, with his mother bustling about cheerily to finish the daily chores, and his father continually keeping things interesting with his absurdities. He glanced down at Goddard, who had trotted in and sat beside him. Patting the robotic dog's head fondly, Jimmy did a mental run-through of his plans for the day. He'd tinker with his wormhole generator again and make sure he fixed all the bugs he'd discovered last time. Then, if that didn't occupy too much time, he should have an hour or so to spare on designing a few modifications for Goddard's defense mechanisms. Afterward, he'd have all evening to hang out with Carl and Sheen, who'd been dying to try Sam's new something-or-other at the Candy Bar. And maybe, if he got lucky and ran into her at the Candy Bar, he'd have a chance to wave his newest invention for class Show-and-Tell in Vortex's face.

Yes, Jimmy told himself, today was going to be a good day.

"Jimmy, Jimmy, JIMMY!"

The boy genius raised an eyebrow at his friend, half-expecting Sheen to somehow spontaneously combust due to his excitement. "Yes, Sheen?" he asked, trying to ever-so-subtly move the ice cream sundae sitting on the table in front of the hyperactive boy. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sam standing behind the counter of the Candy Bar frowning at them.

Sheen glared at Jimmy, snatched the sundae bowl from him, and launched into an eager and extremely random question, as Jimmy had expected.

"Can we go mushroom collecting?!"

Jimmy paused, trying to let the question sink in. Even for Sheen, this was an odd request. "And why exactly do you want to hunt for mushrooms?" he queried.

Across the table, Carl piped in. "Hey, Jim, I'm allergic to fungi. They make me sneeze and swell up and sneeze some more and…"

"Yes, Carl, we know," Jimmy broke in impatiently.

Sheen shoveled an especially huge mound of ice cream into his mouth and then tried to speak around it. "'Becaush, Jemmy, Ultralord ushed…" –here he swallowed the mass of dairy product and hot fudge— "…a concoction of highly hypnotic mushrooms to defeat the Manic Monkey Monsters in episode 787! And since I've pledged to follow in Ultralord's footsteps and dedicate my life to serving justice and defeating evil, it is my duty to find a weapon worthy of Ultralord!"

"Soo…" Jimmy responded slowly, "you want to create a chemical mixture using non-existent fungi to hypnotize a non-existent primate menace?"

Eye twitching, Sheen stared blankly at Jimmy.

With a shake of his head, the boy genius shoved his empty sundae bowl away and slid out of the booth. "Sheen…" he started to say, but before he finished his sentence, he was interrupted by the approach of Cindy Vortex and her best friend.

"Jimmy, what did ya do to Sheen?" Libby demanded, studying the boy's face with slight concern.

Cindy snickered. "Ultra-dweeb's brain probably just short-circuited, Libbs. Why should we care?"

Libby frowned at her friend, but seemed either unable or unwilling to come up with a greater comeback than that. She turned back to Sheen to see his eyes focus on her and his face brighten visibly. He greeted her with a delighted grin, and she couldn't help but smile back. No matter how often she told herself that he was a complete geek, she could never ignore the fact that she loved being around him and seeing just how much he cared for her.

"Hey, Libby, wanna go mushroom hunting?" Sheen asked hopefully.

Taken aback, Libby was just about to respond when a noise erupted from outside. It was a horrendous combination of glass shattering, steel creaking, wood splitting, and nearby citizens screaming.

"What was THAT?" Libby cried.

Wide-eyed and terrified, the kids all sprinted to the Candy Bar's glass double doors and peered outside. Behind them, Sam and a few other customers gathered around to see what was going on. The sight made them gasp collectively, but they were too immobilized by fear and wonder to do much else. Off to the west, the sun was beginning to set, tinting the wisps of pearly clouds blood red and saturating the air with its warm glow. But that wasn't the only source of light. Down the street, a mass of rubble that had once been the "Greeting Cards and Titanium" building was smoking with greedy, dancing flames.

"What could've destroyed—" Jimmy began, but he never finished his sentence. For, at that very moment, the sky darkened and a shadow fell over the blacktop outside. Cars stopped in the middle of the street as their drivers shoved them into park and stepped onto the pavement to stare in awe. Everywhere, citizens cried out, pointing at the sky, seeking cover, or simply standing still, gawking.

Working up his courage, Jimmy clenched his jaw, tightened his hand into a fist, and dashed outside. His friends hesitated before timidly following.

"An alien spaceship!" Jimmy muttered, shading his eyes and gazing up at the sky.

"Again?" Libby said. "Haven't the Yolkians learned?"

"That's no Yolkian ship," Jimmy responded, pointing up to the dark, bulky ship blocking the sky above them. He tried to hide his growing fear, but something inside of him warned him that whatever was in that ship was a far greater threat than the aliens of Yolkus. With a side glance at his friends, he took in their terrified faces and knew they felt the same. They turned to him expectantly; it was obvious they counted on him to handle this situation.

Of course. If anyone could stop these aliens, it was him, and him alone. Jimmy held his head high with self-confidence and stared back up at the ship, his searching eyes quickly analyzing every inch of its surface. He'd misjudged these aliens in his first panic; he'd be able to take them easily.

He was a genius, after all. What _couldn't_ his brain accomplish?


	3. Two

**Thanks for the reviews, everyone! I'm posting this chapter now, since I already have it written, and I'm working on the next, but after chapter 3 I'm going to try to keep alternating between this and my other fic.

* * *

**

**Two**

A scream from a woman across the street reminded Jimmy of his town's imminent danger. If he didn't take action soon, the aliens would move on to demolish other buildings, although he didn't quite understand the purpose behind leveling a few stores. Tapping a button on his watch, he told Goddard to meet him outside the Candy Bar as soon as possible.

"What do they want with us?" Libby demanded, brow furrowed. She watched as the huge ship hovered over the street, as if the creatures within hadn't determined what to destroy next.

"Oh, I know! I know!" Sheen cried eagerly, jumping out from behind Libby to face her and Jimmy. "They've come to harvest our hypnotic mushrooms!"

Libby rolled her eyes and Jimmy glared at him. Clenching one hand into a fist, he stepped toward the ship bravely. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of Goddard swooping down to the sidewalk to stand beside his master. It was comforting to have the mechanical dog by his side; Jimmy's courage always rose when his faithful companion was around.

"What are you going to do, Jimmy?" Carl worried, noticing that his friend had begun inching toward the spacecraft.

Jimmy set his jaw determinedly. "I'm going to talk to them," he said. He turned to Goddard with a quick order to send a signal to the craft. As the dog made a connection with the ship, he popped open his "GTV", giving Jimmy and his friends a view of the cockpit.

The kids could scarcely breathe as they took in the sight: two aliens, one obviously the pilot, were seated close to the screen before them, gazing at the picture they had of the children with cold, dark eyes. They were dark and scaly like the Space Bandits, but they were larger than them and had rather shapeless forms. Although their bodies were like grotesque blobs with stubby arms, the aliens moved quickly and effortlessly. But, more than anything, it was their eyes that drew the kids' attention. They were slitted and cunning like snake eyes, and glimmering with malice.

Icy waves of terror washed down the boy genius's back as he lost himself in the alien pilot's gaze. Then, recollecting himself, he blinked and frowned angrily at the screen. There was no time to waste. "Who are you and what do you want?" he demanded, trying to make the threat in his eyes as ominous as the strangers' was.

The creature in the pilot's seat kept its black snake eyes focused on him for several moments without speaking a word. Then, an unpleasant smile twisted its lips and it opened its mouth to speak in an odd, slithery voice. "We're citizens of the planet Omnnidius, and we've come to destroy your planet and take all of you home as slaves. Is that specific enough for you?" the creature smirked.

"But why are you doing that to us? What did we do to you?" Jimmy shouted indignantly.

The pilot slowly grinned at the genius and offered, "Come aboard our ship and we'll explain everything."

Jimmy balked, but before he could say another word the picture on Goddard's screen vanished. Before him, the spacecraft hovering over the road began to descend until it was resting on the blacktop. All around the kids, citizens were crying out in horror and backing away from the strange ship.

"We're gonna g-go inside?" Carl sputtered, shaking visibly.

The boy genius tried to swallow past the lump in his throat and, to avoid giving away his fear by speaking, simply nodded.

"This is crazy!" Cindy spit out. "Why would we go aboard a strange spaceship and chat with a bunch of aliens planning to kill us? Do you have a death wish, Neutron?"

Jimmy glared at her. "We're going to negotiate, Vortex, unless you have a better idea!"

The girl's angry expression melted into an uncertain one, and she stepped away from him silently.

Ahead of the kids, the door of the ship gradually lifted to reveal a ramp leading to a glowing interior.

"Come on, guys," Jimmy whispered, stepping forward carefully. Goddard trotted as bravely as he could by his master's side, while Libby and Cindy walked close behind. Sheen and Carl hesitated in the rear, but their loyalty to their friend--and a bit of curiosity--won out. Retroville lay silent around them, as if every citizen in the vicinty was holding his breath in anticipation. Everyone knew that if anyone could deal with this sudden disaster, it was their boy genius.

Catching the confidence in the Retrovillians' eyes, Jimmy felt a glow of pride. He could do this...

The clank of their feet on the steel ramp echoed in a way that mirrored the pounding of their hearts. THUD...THUD...THUD. It was the only sound in the heavy quiet.

Then, at last, Jimmy reached the top of the ramp and stepped into the green tinted air of the ship. The eerie coloring radiated from neon lights stretching along the ceiling and walls and reflected off the steel. To their left, at the front of the ship, the pilot and copilot's chairs sat empty before the huge screen on which they'd just been watching the kids. On the right was a wall, bare but for the single steel door leading to the rest of the ship. Before them stood the two aliens who they had just spoken with. They were far bigger than they'd appeared on Goddard's screen: their bulky forms, though shapeless, rippled with muscles. Both stood at least over seven feet tall, leaving the kids to stand anxiously in their shadows.

As the gang stood gazing around dumbly, the two aliens watched them in mild amusement before their eyes once again grew cold. "Welcome aboard our ship, humans," the pilot greeted them darkly.

Goddard growled up at them until the co-pilot shot him an angry look. The robotic dog whined in terror and slipped behind the protection of his master's legs.

"What I want to know," Libby spoke up boldly, yanking herself away from a nervous Sheen's iron grip, "is why you aliens think ya have any business comin' to our planet an' destroyin' our stuff. We've never done anythin' to you an' we'd be more than happy to ignore you if ya want."

"My, my, let's not get ahead of ourselves!" the alien pilot stopped, shaking his head. "I think we'd better introduce ourselves more formally. I am Nillov, and this is my copilot, Gershok."

Despite his fear, Sheen stifled a giggle and jabbed Carl in the ribs.

"Ow, Sheen!" Carl whined, but quieted immediately when he received a glare from everyone in the room but Sheen himself.

"And who are you?" Nillov demanded, studying the kids carefully.

Jimmy frowned deeply, but humored the alien with introductions. "I'm Jimmy Neutron, this is my dog Goddard, and these are my friends Carl, Sheen, Cindy, and Libby."

Nillov and Gershok exchanged a glance. "Strange names," Nillov muttered, and his companion nodded.

"So, explain exactly why you're here again," Jimmy prompted, crossing his arms impatiently. His friends were still gathered close to him as if they felt safer by his side. It certainly boosted his confidence in himself as he watched these strangers with their dark, unfriendly eyes.

Nillov waved a hand in the air, revealing his long claws in the process. With a grin that displayed sparkling sharp teeth, he began, "Well, since you're foreign to Omnidian culture, I suppose we'd better start there. You see, for generations, almost as long as we've been in existence, we've known that many of our kind have been specially gifted with seeing the future. It started with some having visions and dreams and warning others about it, but at first they usually were not heeded. Most thought our prophets were crazy and refused to believe them. If someone began to prophesy doom, many Omnidians chose to just ignore the words that one spoke. Little by little, though, our people discovered that those prophecies usually came to pass. Finally, Omnidians began to believe the seers who warned them of danger and trials before such things even happened."

"Nice story," Sheen spoke up, "but isn't that a little beside the point?"

"Quiet," Gershok snapped, leaning closer to the boy so that he was towering over him. Sheen shrank back, and the alien turned to his companion to let him continue.

"For a few years now we've had one of our prophets telling us of a people from a distant planet who would discover us and wipe out our population," Nillov informed them. "They'd level our cities with their weapons, leaving none of us alive. Needless to say, these terrible words could not go unheeded by our people, so after much interrogation of this seer and a long search for a likely planet to be harboring such a threat, we came upon a conclusion. All the prophet's words point to the source of our pain coming from you humans on this disgusting planet you call Earth. We've been observing and studying this planet and your people--most especially you, Jimmy Neutron--for months, and we've found that you definitely are capable of commiting all the heinous acts our prophet foresaw. Since our prophecies are right 60 of the time, we can't ignore such a terrible warning."

"You mean you're going to destroy Earth because of a stupid _prophecy_?" Cindy practically shouted.

"_Sixty percent_?" Jimmy exploded at almost the same time as Cindy. "That doesn't make your prophecies reliable enough to destroy a whole planet over just a few visions!"

Gershok crossed his arms and stepped closer to the boy. "We're not taking any risks, human," he growled. "We have faith in our prophets and we can't afford putting our people in danger. Blowing up your filthy little planet and taking your population for slaves will prevent you from ever becoming a threat."

"And think of how great it will be to have so many slaves," Nillov put in, glancing at his copilot. "Our commander will be so pleased. We could build up our army and take over our galaxy!"

"You'd let us fight _space wars_?" Sheen broke out, gasping with sudden glee. "I've always wanted to--"

Libby knocked him over the head to shut him up.

"Now that we've demonstrated our power to you," Nillov continued, "I think you humans would prefer to surrender to us and become our slaves willingly...to prevent any bloodshed?"

"If your prophecy is right," Jimmy shot back, "we're more than capable of destroying your planet instead and taking YOU as slaves!"

"I thought you'd say that," Nillov answered with an unpleasant smile. "But, you see, we have an advantage over you: our people can see the future and take preventative measures before you ever even put any of your plans into action. Just like this little precaution we're doing now. See, being our slaves truly is the best alternative."

"Now, get off our ship, you disgusting little creatures" Gershok ordered, his gruff voice sinking even lower and growing more terrible. "We're giving you two days to decide to surrender or meet a worse fate than slavery. Either way, your planet will be destroyed after forty-eight hours."

Heads spinning, the children were left speechless. Gershok took a threatening step toward them, forcing them all to step away hastily. They stumbled out of the ship, reaching the road just as the ramp lifted off the asphalt and closed once more. Then, as the gang watched with pounding hearts, the gleaming ship rose right before their eyes and shot back up into the sky. In mere moments the aliens were gone, leaving five children to contemplate the world's fate.

Their forty-eight hours had begun.

* * *


	4. Three

**Thanks for the reviews, everyone. I'm certainly not going to quit writing fanfiction, but don't be surprised if I disappear a lot. I just don't know how much time I'll be able to devote to things outside of school, work, family, friends--all that jazz. Anyway, thanks, as always, for your reviews. I have chapter 4 finished as well, so at least my next update will come soon. :)**

* * *

**Three**

There was a heavy silence in the street for one breathless minute. Jimmy could feel his friends' eyes practically boring into him as they awaited his response; never before had he been so aware of how much they depended on him. It left him with a strange sense of both fear and complacency.

Then, all at once, cheers erupted from the citizens as they celebrated what they assumed was the aliens' permanent departure. Clustering around the kids, the people began crying out their gratitude and asking all sorts of questions. The babble only made it harder for them to recover from their shock; they stood almost dumbly as the people of Retroville pounded them with inquiries. It was Sheen who came to himself first.

"Sweet!" he exclaimed, holding up a pen he'd just been handed. "Jimmy, they want our autographs!"

The boy genius raised sad eyes to him and then muttered something to Goddard in a voice too low for anyone else to hear over the crowd. Libby shot Sheen an angry glance and yanked him away from the eager citizens.

"This is no time to play around!" she told him shortly.

With a bark, Goddard lifted himself into the air as Jimmy snatched a hold on his leg. The pair flew their way out of the crowd, forcing the people to part for them and the other kids jogging in their wake.

"Hurry guys; we can't waste any time!" Jimmy called back to them urgently. As soon as there was a comfortable distance between them and the crowd, Goddard descended to the ground again. Jimmy dropped to the sidewalk and motioned to the gang for follow him as he traced his way carefully back to the Candy Bar by approaching it from the back. The hover car sat in the parking lot, which was already full of surprised people hunting for the kids who had mysteriously saved their town.

Suddenly, a man standing near the entrance of the Candy Bar caught sight of the gang slipping toward the hover car. "There they are!" he cried, pointing eagerly.

"Faster!" Jimmy leapt into the front seat and Goddard hopped in beside him. Libby and Cindy climbed into the back with Sheen right on their heels, but Carl, puffing and sweating, lagged behind.

"Hurry, Carl!" Libby exclaimed worriedly as the boy clutched at the side of the machine. She stood to her feet and, with Sheen's help, grasped the boy's arms and yanked him over the side as Jimmy shoved the key into the ignition and started the hovercar.

"Hey! Hold up, kids!" a woman yelled while a dozen other people raced toward them from all sides. "We just want to know what's going on!"

"Not now! No time!" Jimmy shouted as the hovercar lifted off the ground. He swerved to the left and shot right over the roof of the Candy Bar in a mad dash to get to his lab.

A few minutes later, Jimmy landed the hovercar right in front of his clubhouse's door and sprang out immediately. He plucked a hair out of his head with unusual force, but he was too distracted to feel much. Shoving it before the DNA scanner and racing through the door, he left his friends straggling anxiously behind.

As soon as they'd reached his lab below, Jimmy began scrounging around his lab, digging through his various inventions as if he were hunting for something important.

"What're ya plannin' on doin'?" Libby inquired, studying Jimmy in mild surprise as he ransacked the place.

"If the Omnidians are so impressed with my inventions," Jimmy explained, looking up from his search for a moment and letting the pride seep into his voice, "then I have a way to use that to our advantage!"

"What are you talking about?" Cindy demanded, frowning deeply at him as he beamed with self-satisfaction. "The whole reason they're going to make us their slaves and destroy our planet is because they saw your inventions were capable of _destroying_ them!"

Jimmy shook his head slowly, stepping away from his CronoArch to speak to his friends. "They're obviously intellectual life forms," he pointed out. "They'd see how pointless any kind of violence would be when we could work things out...diplomatically!"

Libby pressed a hand to her forehead, suddenly irritated. "Jimmy," she practically groaned, "did ya hear _nothin'_ they told us? They saw a future with us attackin' 'em! Whether they were right or not, they're not gonna believe anythin' we say when they think we're gonna go after 'em! They'll see it as a trick."

"You're underestimating the power of an intelligent negotiation, Libby," Jimmy responded, throwing his hands up in the air in annoyance. "Have you guys forgotten I've saved the world before? Just trust me. I can do this."

At that, Cindy stormed up to him and shoved a finger toward his chest. "Have YOU forgotten that you've also nearly destroyed the world? What about when we were forced to play on Intergalactic Showdown? Did you learn nothing from _that_?" Her hot breath brushed against Jimmy's face, and he leaned away nervously in a vain attempt to avoid her fiery glare.

"They've got a point, Jim," Carl spoke up softly, afraid to enter the conflict.

"Well, what do you want to do? Declare war?!" Jimmy demanded, staring over Cindy's shoulder at Libby. He didn't even favor Cindy with a look.

Libby crossed her arms and started tapping her foot impatiently. "I'm pretty sure they've already declared war on _us_," she pointed out. "There's no way we'd ever surrender to be their slaves! What we need is a different strategy."

Cindy naturally took charge at that point, her voice ringing out her excitement. "I say we make a preemptive strike!" She spun around eagerly, turning to Carl and Sheen for their approval. "We'll take out as much of their spacecraft as possible, and there'll be no way they'll be able to come back to Earth to do any damage!"

"What about when they repair their ships?" Jimmy demanded.

Cindy waved him off. "That's just buying us _time_," she cut in. "We'll have plenty of time to think things through and come up with a _reasonable_ solution before they ever return. You can invent something to keep them out of our atmosphere...or even out of our solar system! Automatic, armed space stations...whatever! I'm sure you could invent some sort of defensive devices."

That last concession softened Jimmy a little, but he couldn't ignore another flaw in the girl's plan. "You forget that the aliens can see the future," he reminded her. "They'll be prepared for us before we ever even reach their planet!"

Cindy clenched a fist. "That's why your space car is equipped with laser guns, Nerdtron."

"I thought our goal was no violence...remember?" Jimmy hinted, his tone turning a bit sour.

"If the Omnidian doofuses want violence, it's going to be hard to avoid," Cindy countered, rolling her eyes. "But that's why we have to hurry! We could reach their planet way before they could prepare for us! From the sound of things, only some of the aliens can prophesize...if that story was even true. They wouldn't have much time to warn the rest of their alien pals."

Libby grinned at her friend. "Good thinking, Cin."

Jimmy glanced around at the group in frustration. Carl looked too worried to speak, and even Sheen seemed speechless. They'd never dealt with an enemy like this before; besides, they were in the habit of waiting for Jimmy to take over and give them their orders. This was out of his friends' league, and Libby and Cindy were only making things worse. They didn't know what they were talking about; HE was the genius here, after all. "That's a stupid plan!" he snapped at Cindy, furious that she'd taken the spotlight.

"What?" Cindy shouted back. "It's way better than yours. Diplomacy with a bunch of freaks bent on destroying our planet isn't gonna work! Do you WANT to be a slave to a bunch of psycho aliens? What, do you think they're gonna be your little scientific pals or something? You think you'll be sitting in some university on their planet sipping tea and discussing science?"

"Think of what they have to offer us if we'd give them the chance! Think of the new species we could study on their planet; the knowledge they could pass on to us...the new culture we could experience! We could negotiate. I've got plenty of inventions. I could build them whatever they wanted...teach their scientists how to create what I've made! They wouldn't need prophets if they could actually VISIT the future!"

"Yeah, I bet they'd have you build them some inventions to help them take over more planets like they were talking about," Cindy broke in.

"I don't think it's a good idea, Jim..." Carl muttered.

"Yeah, dude," Sheen spoke up for the first time. "We'd all end up being their hypnotized army helping them take over the universe, like in Ultralord episode 890 when the Rebulyons--"

"Sheen," Libby interrupted more firmly than usual, "this isn't the time to discuss Ultralord! We only have forty-eight hours!"

"I'll load up some of my inventions in the space car for demonstration," Jimmy announced. "You'll see. This is the best way to go about it. Once we make an offer of peace, their vision of the future will have to change! They'll know we're not bluffing. Intelligent beings can talk diplomacy with other intelligent beings. I'm sure they'll listen to me."

Cindy rolled her eyes and turned to exchange a glance with her best friend.

"Somebody's got an ever bigger head than usual today," Libby muttered.

"I've got a bad feeling about this," Carl told his friend, but Jimmy began muttering some reassurances to him right away. He was only partially paying attention to what he was saying, though, being absorbed in collecting some of his inventions together at the moment.

"Don't worry; we have forty-eight hours. They couldn't take us as slaves before then or they'd break their word."

"Uh, Jimmy?" Sheen said, fidgeting with his fingers. "I'm no expert on evil alien ethics, but Ultralord's enemies _always_ break their word." He nodded solemnly, as if he'd just passed on a treasure trove of wisdom.

Jimmy shook his head and ignored him. "We'll leave as soon as possible," he informed his friends. "That should give me enough time to pack up the necessary inventions and equipment and locate Omnidius's exact position."

Carl and Sheen stepped up to help Jimmy right away, but the girls stood in the background.

"This is just great," Cindy muttered.

Libby shrugged. "Maybe we'll find a way to defeat the aliens while we're there," she offered, trying to sound optimistic.

Her friend tightened her hand into a fist and almost growled. "He never listens to anyone but himself. He never learns, does he? It's all about him and his stupid ego! That's all he cares about..."

Libby interrupted the blonde with a half-smile. "Hey, Cin? Let's get outta here before Jimmy remembers he doesn't like girls in his lab."

"Yeah," Cindy muttered, throwing an angry glance over her shoulder before marching out with her best friend. "Ugh," she continued, "he's never going to stop until the earth _really_ gets destroyed..."


End file.
